SDG 5 and PWDs: Achieving Gender Equality and Empowering all Women and Girls with Disabilities
Abstract
The Sustainable Development Goals number 5 (SDG Goal 5) aims to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. Therefore, this article focuses on women and girls with disabilities, by analyzing the international normative frameworks and providing an overview of their situation, as well as presenting national and international efforts to promote their inclusion and participation in society. The article likewise concludes with suggestions on the way forwar on how to achieve gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls with disabilities.
Keywords: Disabilities, Equality, Gender, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Introduction
Over one billion people worldwide experience some form of disability. The global prevalence is greater for women than men, standing at 19% compared with 12% respectively. In low and middle-income countries, women are estimated to comprise up to three-quarters of persons with disabilities. Poverty and marginalization are compounded when gender and disability intersect. Women and girls with disabilities face multiple barriers to realizing their rights: environmental, physical and informational accessibility issues, including lack of resources and inadequate access to services, as well as widespread discrimination, stereotyping and social stigma (UN Women, 2017).
Women and girls with disabilities are often subjected to double discrimination due to their gender and disability status and continue to be at a disadvantage in most spheres of society and development. Available data revealed that the gap is stark compared with men without disabilities; women and girls with disabilities are three times more likely to have unmet needs for health care; three times more likely to be illiterate; two times less likely to be employed and two times less likely to use the Internet. Among those employed, women with disabilities are two times less likely to work as administrators or decision-makers, senior officials or managers. Women with disabilities tend also to be in a worse position than women without disabilities. Moreover, women with disabilities are at heightened risk of suffering sexual violence compared to those without disabilities.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides the global community with an enormous opportunity and the moral obligation to work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for all women and girls, and address the rights and demands of women and girls with disabilities as a matter of priority. Furthermore, the Sustainable Development Goals 2015-2030 Framework underlines the obligations of state parties to address the rights of all women, specifically mentioning the marginalized groups, such as women and girls with disabilities to not be left behind.
Women and Girls with Disabilities
The term ‘women and girls with disabilities’ refers to all women with disabilities including adolescent girls and young women. ‘Disabilities’ includes all types of impairment – physical, psychosocial, intellectual or mental, as well as sensory conditions with and without functional limitations. Beyond medical dimensions. Disability is understood as ‘the social effect of the interaction between the individual’s impairment and his/her social and physical environment’ (UN, 2018).
Women and girls with disabilities: At a glance
• One in five women live with a disability globally.
• An estimated one in four households has a person with disabilities.
• Women are more likely than men to become disabled throughout the course of their lives.
• Women comprise up to three-quarters of persons with disabilities in low and middle-income countries.
• Prevalence of disability is higher among marginalized populations and people in rural areas.
Gender Equality
The concept that women and men, girls and boys have equal conditions, treatment and opportunities for realizing their full potential, human rights and dignity, and for contributing to (and benefitting from) economic, social, cultural and political development. Gender equality is, therefore, the equal valuing by society of the similarities and the differences of men and women, and the roles they play. It is based on women and men being full partners in the home, community and society. Equality does not mean that women and men will become the same but that women’s and men’s rights, responsibilities and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male or female.
Gender equality implies that the interests, needs and priorities of both women and men, girls and boys are taken into consideration, recognizing the diversity of different groups and that all human beings are free to develop their personal abilities and make choices without the limitations set by stereotypes and prejudices about gender roles. Gender equality is a matter of
human rights and is considered a precondition for, and indicator of, sustainable people-centred development (UNICEF, 2017).
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Disability-inclusive development is an essential condition for a sustainable future. In 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, pledging to leave no one behind in the global efforts to realize the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Without the world’s one billion persons with disabilities - 15% of the world population - being included as both agents and beneficiaries of development, these Goals will never be achieved. Yet, persons with disabilities are still invisible and often left behind (UN, 2018).
SDG 5: Gender Equality
It focuses on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls including those with disabilities. In just about every way, women and girls lag behind. There are still gross inequalities in work and wages, lots of unpaid “women’s work” such as child care and domestic work, and discrimination in public decision-making. But there are grounds for hope. More girls are in school now compared to in 2000. Most regions have reached gender parity in primary education. The percentage of women getting paid for their work is on the rise. Hence, the Sustainable Development Goals aim to build on these achievements to ensure that there is an end to discrimination against women and girls everywhere (UN, 2018).
If there is gender equality, then men and women have the same opportunities to access and benefit from social and economic resources such as healthcare services, education, employment opportunities, social protection, leadership roles in decision making, among others. Unequal gender power relations and harmful gender norms and stereotypes affect the social and well-being of women and men in a number of different ways.
SDG 5 and Women/Girls With Disabilities
Disability, gender inequality, and discrimination are closely interlinked. For example, while a significant portion of women and girls were born with disabilities, others become disabled as a result of exposure to gender-related risk factors, including lack of access to sexual and reproductive health services, exposure to violence and harmful practices, and gender-biased intra-household distribution of resources. Further, as a group of women that is far from homogenous, women with disabilities often experience multiple forms of discrimination based on other factors in addition to gender and disability. For gender equality and empowerment to become a reality for all women and girls, it is indispensable that the specific concerns of women and girls with disabilities are mainstreamed across the entire SDGs framework and considered across all targets for SDG Goal 5. For the latter, it is important to remember that:
Target 5.1: Women and girls with disabilities often lack legal capacity and have reduced power and status in relationships, households and communities, and are more likely to face discrimination than men and boys with disabilities and women and girls without disabilities.
Target 5.2: While affecting women generally, women and girls with disabilities are disproportionately at risk of violence due to factors relating to systemic discrimination and stigma. This is compounded by poverty, social isolation and political marginalization; inadequate services and support systems that lack awareness, training and capacity; lack of access to justice, and disabling, inaccessible and hostile environments. Women and girls with disabilities are often targeted for their perceived powerlessness and vulnerability, mostly by men they know and rely on for care, support and companionship in dependent professional and personal relationships.
Target 5.3: Women and girls with disabilities are two to three times more likely to be child brides, experience early pregnancy and female genital mutilation;10 they are subjected to specific harmful practices, like ‘virgin testing’, and ‘virgin rapes’, relating to myths about HIV and AIDS; neglect linked with preferential care and treatment of boys; extreme dietary restrictions; and infanticide, forced sterilization and abortion, commonly justified by ill-informed cultural and paternalistic interpretations of disability.
Target 5.4: Women and girls with disabilities depend on others for care, but are often also caregivers themselves. They are therefore disproportionately affected by the lack of recognition and social support for unpaid care and domestic work. In addition, stereotypical views of women with disabilities as “unfit” mothers may lead to the termination of parental rights by social service agencies or in child custody and protection proceedings following divorce.
Target 5.5: Women with disabilities face numerous environmental, attitudinal and other barriers to political participation, and consequently remain largely excluded from decision-making and advocacy processes about issues that affect their lives. Their views are often ignored or disregarded in favour of ‘experts’, ‘professionals’, parents, guardians and carers. Enabling environments are essential to promoting political participation, which in turn may result in public policy that is more disability-inclusive.
Target 5.6: The lack of access to sexual and reproductive health and rights is among the most pressing concerns for women and girls with disabilities; they are often not enabled to make their own informed decisions regarding sexual relations, contraceptive use and reproductive health care.
What Does SDG 5 Mean For Women and Girls with Disabilities
The SDGs and particularly Goal 5, which focuses on Gender Equality and the empowerment of women and girls, has a key role in creating opportunities for women and girls with disabilities to fulfill their full potential. Goal 5 includes a number of targets and the following bullet points highlight how these targets are also equally relevant to women and girls with disabilities.
1- End discrimination against all women and girls everywhere: This is particularly relevant to women and girls with disabilities. In comparison to men with disabilities and women without disabilities, women and girls with disabilities have lower education completion rates, are less likely to be employed and are more at risk of living in poverty. National policies and frameworks that are developed as a result of the SDGs must include women and girls with disabilities if discrimination against all women and girls is to be achieved.
2- Eliminate all forms of violence and harmful practices against all women: Women with disabilities are at heightened risk of violence, exploitation and abuse compared to women without disabilities. Measures taken to implement this target must be inclusive of women with disabilities.
3- Recognize and value unpaid care work: This is an important point for both women and men with disabilities who require personal assistance/care assistance and needs to be adequately resourced by governments. Women who make up the majority of the caring/personal assistance workforce providing this support should be paid fairly for their work.
4- Reform legislative and policy blocks that prevent women having equal rights to economic resources: Linked with the above statement about women with disabilities at risk of living in poverty, some of the factors that contribute to this include; laws and policies that prevent women with disabilities having control over their resources. For example, outdated legal capacity laws and prejudicial attitudes which deny women with disabilities the opportunities to have their own bank accounts or prevent them from getting access to micro-credit for livelihood opportunities. Measures taken to reform laws to enable equal rights to resources must also include women with disabilities,
5- Enhance the use of enabling technology: Technology and assistive devices are key enablers for women and men with disabilities. Access to assistive aids and devices can make a difference in the lives of women and men with disabilities, technology also has a key role to play in creating inclusion,
6- Ensure participation and leadership in decision-making: Women with disabilities typically have not been in leadership positions within the government and public sector, the private sector, disability or gender movements,
7- Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights: Women and girls with disabilities face negative attitudes by society related to the intersection of disability and gender and these impact on the enjoyment of sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the right to a found a family.
International Normative Frameworks Relevant for the Achievement of SDG 5 for PWDs
Goal 5 calls for the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against all women and girls, including those with disabilities. It also stresses the importance of their full and effective inclusion and equal opportunities in political, economic and public life.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) adopted in 1979 addresses the advancement of the status of women. While CEDAW does not make explicit reference to women and girls with disabilities, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action recognizes that women and girls with disabilities face multiple barriers to full equality and advancement, and the enjoyment of human rights, and identifies specific actions to ensure the empowerment of women with disabilities in various areas, including: enhancement of the self-reliance of women with disabilities (paragraph 175(d)); equal access to appropriate education and skills training for their full participation in life (paragraph 280(c)); improvement of their work opportunities (paragraph 82(k)); creation of health programmes and services that address the specific needs of women with disabilities (paragraph 106(c)); promotion of equity and positive action programmes to address systemic discrimination against women with disabilities in the labour force (paragraph 178(f)); and improvements in the concepts and methods of data collection on the participation of women and men with disabilities, including their access to resources (paragraph 206(k)).
However, it was not until the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) that the international community set out specific provisions dedicated to women and girls with disabilities. The CRPD calls for a twin track approach in this regard: gender equality is established as a general principle, to be taken into account in the implementation of each article of the Convention, and the CRPD also includes a stand-alone article on women with disabilities (Article 6). This article recognizes that women and girls with disabilities are subjected to multiple forms of discrimination and establishes that States Parties should take all appropriate measures to ensure their full development, advancement and empowerment. The CRPD further stipulates that States Parties should put in place effective legislation and policies with a focus on women with disabilities to protect them from exploitation, violence and abuse (article 16, paragraph 5), and should pay special attention to women and girls with disabilities in access to social protection programmes and poverty reduction programmes (article 28, paragraph 2(b)).
Relatedly, the General Assembly Resolution on Implementation of the Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol thereto: Situation of women and girls with disabilities (A/RES/72/162), adopted in 2017, focuses on the special needs and challenges that women and girls with disabilities face. The resolution calls for eliminating multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and all forms of violence, supporting women and girls with disabilities to exercise their legal capacity to have the freedom to make their own choices on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life, promoting their empowerment and leadership, as well as ensuring equal access to education, employment and health services, including sexual and reproductive health services. The resolution emphasizes the importance of collecting and analysing data disaggregated by income, sex, race, age, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant to national contexts to guide policy planning. It also calls upon States to improve data collection systems for adequate monitoring and evaluation frameworks on the implementation of the CRPD and the SDGs for women and girls with disabilities.
Gender equality is also addressed in the context of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The Small Island Developing States Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway, adopted in 2014, emphasizes the importance of reducing structural and socioeconomic inequalities and multiple intersecting forms of discrimination that affect women and girls, including those with disabilities, that hinder progress and development. Commitments to women and girls with disabilities in the SAMOA Pathway include support for the provision of high-quality education and training, and disaggregation of data by sex, age and disability.
The Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2011–2020 commits to pursuing policy measures to promote gender equality for women with disabilities.
The Situation of Women and Girls with Disabilities
This subsection presents available evidence on the status of inclusion, on an equal basis with others, of women and girls with disabilities. It focuses on available data and information in relation to key areas of the SDGs, including poverty and hunger, access to health-care services, education and employment. The subsection also presents evidence to illustrate the situation of women and girls with disabilities regarding several Goal 5 targets. This includes available data on exposure to violence (target 5.2), child marriage (target 5.3), unpaid work (target 5.4), opportunities for leadership (target 5.5) and use of the Internet (target 5.b).
Poverty and hunger
There is limited data on poverty that has been disaggregated by disability and sex. Data on the percentage of persons living under the national poverty line from six countries around 2014, albeit limited in the number of countries, show a consistent pattern. While women with disabilities experience higher poverty rates than men and women without disabilities in all countries, the poverty rates among women and men with disabilities are similar. The highest gap in poverty rates between women and men with disabilities is observed in the United States (6 percentage points) and the lowest gap in Mongolia (no gap). Poverty rates among women with disabilities vary from 11% in Macao, China to 36% in the Republic of Korea.
Regarding food security and nutrition, data from 35 countries, mostly in Europe, show that on average 18% of women with disabilities are unable to afford a meal with a protein component every second day. This ranges from 2% in Iceland to 68% in Turkey. Women and men with disabilities show on average similar percentages regarding inability to afford a meal with a protein component every second day. The highest gaps between women and men with disabilities – over 5 percentage points – appear in Bulgaria, Iceland, Lithuania and Serbia. The highest gaps between women with disabilities and men without disabilities – over 15 percentage points – are observed in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Montenegro and Serbia. Evidence from Botswana points to similar rates of food insecurity between women and men with disabilities, but women with disabilities are almost twice as likely to not have food in the household, due to lack of resources, than men without disabilities (UN, 2018).
Access to health care
Among 37 countries, 13% of women with disabilities, on average, cannot get health care when they need it. In Austria, Cyprus and Slovenia, the health-care needs of women with disabilities are largely met: only 1% of women with disabilities are unable to meet their health needs – the lowest values among the 37 countries. However, in ten of these countries, more than 20% of women with disabilities are not able to meet their health needs. In Montenegro, this affects 43% of women with disabilities. Differences between women and men with disabilities tend to be small (up to 5 percentage points), while the differences between women with disabilities and men without disabilities are wider (up to 40 percentage points, and 9 percentage points on average).
On average, women with disabilities have similar rates of unmet health needs as men with disabilities (13% and 12%, respectively), but higher than both men and women without disabilities (4%). This suggests that overall, barriers for persons with disabilities are a major factor impeding access to health care for women with disabilities. This is consistent with other findings showing that physical, financial and attitudinal barriers are an obstacle for persons with disabilities in accessing health care (UN, 2018).
Access to education
Among 29 developing countries, on average only 69% of women with disabilities ever attended school, compared to 72% of men with disabilities, 79% of women without disabilities and 86% of men without disabilities. In most countries, for both persons with and without disabilities aged 15 to 29, men are more likely to have ever attended school than women. The percentage of women with disabilities who have ever attended school varies among these 29 countries, from 21% in Burkina Faso to 97% in Uruguay. The gaps vis-Ã -vis men without disabilities are small in eight countries (under 5 percentage points); but are wider than 20 percentage points in seven countries.
The evidence suggests that, depending on the country, gender discrimination or barriers for persons with disabilities (e.g. lack of accessibility and discrimination on the grounds of disability) may play a bigger role. In Benin, Mali, South Sudan and Togo, the gap is wider between women (both with and without disabilities) and men, but narrower between women with and without disabilities. The ratios of men with disabilities who have ever attended school are closer to those of men without disabilities. This suggests that gender discrimination plays a major role in schooling. In Brazil, Indonesia, Tunisia and Timor-Leste, the gap is wider between persons with disabilities (both women and men) and persons without disabilities. In these countries, the percentage of women without disabilities who have ever attended school is close to that of men without disabilities, thus suggesting that attitudinal and physical barriers against persons with disabilities are a factor explaining the low rates of school attendance of women with disabilities (UN, 2018).
Primary education
Evidence from 17 countries, around 2010, shows that in all countries but Gambia, young women and men with disabilities aged 17 to 24 are less likely to complete primary education than their peers without
disabilities. Depending on the country, young women have higher or lower rates of completion than boys, regardless of their disability status. In eight of those countries, young women with disabilities have higher rates than boys with disabilities, and in five of these eight, the same is true for their peers without disabilities. Young women with disabilities show higher completion rates than young men with disabilities mostly in countries in which the overall completion rate is high or in which young women without disabilities show higher completion rates than young men without disabilities.
Tertiary education
Among 41 countries, around 2012, on average, 10% of women with disabilities have completed tertiary education, which is similar to the rate for men with disabilities (also 10%), but lower than the rates for women and men without disabilities (21%), as shown in various empirical studies. There is a wide variation among countries on rates of completion of tertiary education for women with disabilities: in Cambodia only 0.2% but in Finland as many as 34% of women with disabilities complete tertiary education. In 27 countries, or more than half, the tertiary completion rates for women with disabilities are lower than for men with disabilities. In 40 countries, or almost all, the tertiary completion rates for women with disabilities are lower than for men without disabilities. In 38 countries, the tertiary completion rates for women with disabilities are lower than for women without disabilities.
Literacy rates
Evidence from 35 countries around 2010 shows that, in the majority of countries, women with disabilities have lower literacy rates than men with disabilities. The widest gaps occur in Mozambique, where the difference is 32 percentage points, and the State of Palestine, where the difference is 34 percentage points. In Mozambique, almost one in two men with disabilities (49%) can read and write, compared to only one in six women with disabilities (17%). In the State of Palestine, three in four men with disabilities are literate but only one in four women with disabilities are literate. In four countries, women with disabilities have higher literacy rates than men with disabilities: Brazil, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Uruguay, with differences ranging from 1 to 7 percentage points. In all countries women with disabilities have lower literacy rates than men without disabilities, the gap between these two ranges from 6 percentage points in Costa Rica to 72 percentage points in Oman. Among the 35 countries, on average, 45% of women with disabilities are literate compared to 61% of men with disabilities, 71% of women without disabilities and 82% of men without disabilities (UN, 2018).
Employment
A direct result of limited access to education among women with disabilities is their significant disadvantage upon entering the job market, in comparison with men with disabilities, and also with women and men without disabilities. According to evidence from six regions, women with disabilities are less likely to be employed than men with disabilities and persons without disabilities in all regions. The employment-to-population ratios for women with disabilities are lowest in Northern Africa and Western Asia (14%) and highest in Europe (42%). In Northern Africa and Western Asia, women with disabilities are five times less likely to be employed as men without disabilities, in Europe they are two times less likely. The gap between women and men with disabilities varies between 6 percentage points in Europe and 26 percentage points in Central and Southern Asia (UN, 2018).
Unpaid work
There has been growing recognition of the value of women’s unpaid care and domestic work, but the role of women with disabilities in this type of work is less known. Contrary to paid work in which women with disabilities participate less than women without disabilities, available evidence shows that in seven out of eight developing countries, women with disabilities are more likely to be engaged in unpaid work than women without disabilities. On average, among these eight countries, 10% of women with disabilities versus 9% of women without disabilities are engaged in unpaid work. The percentages of women with disabilities in unpaid work vary from 2% in Jamaica to 32% in Viet Nam. Since women with disabilities have more difficulty finding paid employment in formal or informal sectors than those without disabilities, they may be left with unpaid work as their only option, especially within the household (UN, 2018).
Opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making
The glass ceiling is harder to break for women with disabilities. Evidence from 19 countries shows that on average women with disabilities are less likely to assume a position as legislators, senior officials or managers than their peers without disabilities and men with or without disabilities: 2.3% of women with disabilities hold these positions compared to 2.8% of men with disabilities, 3.4% of women without disabilities and 4% of men without disabilities. Women with disabilities are the least likely to hold these positions in nine out of these 16 countries and are less likely than men without disabilities to assume such leadership positions in all countries except in Ghana and Jamaica.
There is limited data available on women with disabilities in political leadership roles. The data available suggest that representation remains extremely low. According to data collected in 2017, in 14 out of 18 countries in the Asia and Pacific region, there was no female parliamentarian with disabilities in the national legislative body. In the other four countries, the percentage of female parliamentarians with disabilities ranged from 0.3% to 6.3%.
The representation of women from organizations of persons with disabilities tends also to be low in national coordination mechanisms on disability matters. For instance, among 17 countries or areas from the Asia and Pacific region, the percentage of female members from organizations of persons with disabilities is on average 12%, compared to 21% for men from these organizations and 24% of women and 43% of men from other organizations. In three of these countries, there are no women from organizations of persons with disabilities represented. Nauru has the highest representation of women from such organizations (29%). Among representatives from organizations of persons with disabilities, the number of women is equal to or higher than men in only five countries or areas
The representation of women with disabilities in national machinery for gender equality is even lower. In 7 out of 12 countries in the Asia and Pacific region, none of the members are women with disabilities. In the remaining five countries, on average 9% of the representatives are women with disabilities. According to the available evidence, gender gaps also persist in the leadership of organizations of persons with disabilities. An analysis of social media data, in 2017, indicated that 42% of women versus 58% of men held leadership positions in Spanish-speaking organizations working on disability issues or with persons with disabilities (UN, 2018).
Access to ICT
Evidence from 13 developing countries indicates that the percentage of women with disabilities using the Internet varies from 1% in Uganda to 57% in the Maldives. Usage of the Internet among women with disabilities is lower than among persons without disabilities (both men and women) in all countries. But compared to men with disabilities, the percentage of women with disabilities using the Internet is higher in 10 out of the 13 countries. On average, among these 13 countries, 21% of women with disabilities use the Internet, compared to 20% of men with disabilities, 33% of women without disabilities and 34% of men without disabilities. This suggests that more barriers exist for disability than for gender. The lowest gaps between women with disabilities and men with and without disabilities are observed in Costa Rica and Honduras, with all of these showing similar rates of Internet usage (UN, 2018).
Current Practices in Gender and Disability
Women and girls with disabilities are often invisible in national policies and programmes. Many countries address gender and disability issues separately without focusing on the intersection between the two. A study in Latin America points to increasing awareness in this region of the need to address this intersection. Seventeen out of 20 countries in the region include disability in their national gender plans and 12 of these countries have gender plans with specific measures targeting women with disabilities. However, only 6 out of 19 countries address gender in their disability laws.
While some countries promote the inclusion and empowerment of women and girls with disabilities through general laws, development plans and strategies, others develop national strategies specifically focusing on women and girls with disabilities. Examples include national action plans for women with disabilities, acts that focus on girls with disabilities in rural areas, reserved seats for women with disabilities in parliament and local governments, and promotion of access to health-care services for women and girls with disabilities. There are also initiatives that prioritize projects that improve the status of women with disabilities when distributing government grants. A number of countries have also put in place initiatives to promote the education of girls with disabilities through targeted scholarships and by promoting the employment of women with disabilities through training. One of these programmes builds on the recognition of the value added of including women and girls with disabilities: visually impaired women were trained as clinical breast examiners as they are able to detect up to 50% more and up to 28% smaller changes in the breast than doctors.
At the international level, an initiative has been taken to establish specific funding for projects focusing on women with disabilities in the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. In 2018, these funds granted financial support to nine projects that aim to end violence against women and girls with disabilities and to strengthen the response capacity of local grassroots organizations working with women and girls who are survivors of violence (UN, 2018).
Conclusion and the Way Forward
The findings in this section are limited to a subset of countries, but they confirm that many women and girls with disabilities face multiple discrimination and barriers to their full and equal inclusion in society and
development. Compared to men without disabilities, women with disabilities are at a severe disadvantage.
The evidence presented here shows that, compared to men without disabilities, women with disabilities are: two times more likely to be poor, two times more likely to not have nutritious and sufficient food, three times more likely to have unmet needs for health care, three times more likely to be illiterate, two times less likely to be employed, and two times less likely to use the Internet. Among those employed, women with disabilities are two times less likely to work as legislators, senior officials or managers. Overall, women with disabilities are also in a worse position than women without disabilities.
In a couple of areas, the evidence does not seem to indicate a further disadvantage of women with disabilities relative to men with disabilities, suggesting that attitudinal and environmental barriers against disability, not gender, are the major factors driving the disadvantage experienced by women with disabilities. This is the case for poverty, access to education, use of the Internet, and physical violence. However, for access to employment and sexual violence, barriers against both gender and disability seem to play a role.
These findings vary across countries. To guide policy design, it is important for development actors and decision makers to determine whether and to what extent the disadvantage that women with disabilities experience is driven by their disability status or by their gender. Gender policies will not succeed if barriers against disability prevent women with disabilities from benefiting from them – in that case, gender policies need to address these barriers, too. Similarly, policies promoting disability inclusion will not succeed if gender discrimination prevents women with disabilities from benefiting from them – in that case, disability policies need to address these stereotypes.
It is still the case that the needs and perspectives of women with disabilities are often not reflected in national gender or disability mechanisms. These mechanisms will need to move beyond working in silos
and acknowledge the intersection between gender and disability.
Despite these findings, this section shows that the gaps between women with disabilities and others vary from country to country, and some countries have managed to reduce gaps. Several countries have implemented measures promoting the inclusion of women and girls with disabilities and these best practices need to be scaled up in other countries. To fully achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls with disabilities, the following actions should be considered:
(1) Address the needs and perspectives of women and girls with disabilities in national disability strategies or action plans, as well as in national gender strategies and action plans. Adopt a national disability strategy or a national disability action plan that is well-funded, has benchmark indicators, and pays due attention to the intersectoral dimension concerning women and girls with disabilities. Include also this dimension in national gender strategies and action plans.
(2) Develop policies and programmes focused on women and girls with disabilities aiming at their full and equal participation in society. Moreover, engage women and girls with disabilities in the development and evaluation processes of policies and programmes. Develop programmes aimed at combating violence, especially sexual violence, against them.
(3) Support the empowerment of women and girls with disabilities to participate equally in society and to reduce gender gaps in economic, social and political participation. Invest in education for women and girls with disabilities and support their transition from school to work through training. Education and training must be provided in accessible formats. Engage with employers to bring awareness of the value added of a diverse workforce that includes women and girls with disabilities.
(4) Raise awareness on the needs of women and girls with disabilities and eliminate stigma and discrimination against them. Provide disability training among organizations and personnel working on gender equality and launch public campaigns to combat the negative stereotypes associated with disability and gender.
(5) Enhance the collection, dissemination and analysis of data on women and girls with disabilities and disaggregate and disseminate data by sex, age and disability for effective policy development, implementation and monitoring of gender equality. Enhance the capacity of national statistical offices to collect and disseminate these data. Promote evidence-based analyses to identify the barriers experienced by women and girls with disabilities, specifically if these are attitudinal barriers against disability, gender or both. Use the data and the studies to inform and guide policymaking.
References
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